AFTER OFFICE-HOURS.
Paul Derinzy was left alone in the Principal Registrar's Room, and
silence reigned in H.M. Stannaries Office. Snow does not melt away
more speedily under the influence of the bright spring sun than do the
clerks of that admirable department under the sound of one o'clock on
a Saturday afternoon. Within ten minutes the place was deserted, the
gentlemen had all cleared out, the messengers had closed up desks and
lockers, despatched papers, and bolted, and the place was left to Mr.
Derinzy and the office-keeper. The latter went to the door with the
last departing messenger, looked up the street and down the street,
and with something of the soreness of a man who knew he was imprisoned
for at least thirty-six hours, said he thought they were going to have
some rain; an idea which the messenger--who had an engagement to take
the young lady with whom he was keeping company to Gravesend on the
Sunday--indignantly pooh-poohed. Not to be put down by this sort of
thing, the office-keeper declared that rain was wanted by the country,
to which the messenger replied that he thought of himself more than
the country; and as the country had done without it for three weeks,
it might hold over without much bother till Monday, he should think;
and nodded, and went his way. The office-messenger kicked the door
viciously to, and proceeded to make his round of the various rooms to
see that everything was in order, and to turn the key in each door
after his inspection. When he came to the Principal Registrar's Room he
went in as usual, but finding Mr. Derinzy there performing on his head
with two hairbrushes, he begged pardon and retreated, wondering what
the deuce possessed anyone to stop in the Office of H.M. Stannaries
when he had the chance of leaving it and going anywhere else. A cynical
fellow this office-keeper, only to be humanised by his release on
Monday morning.
Mr. Paul Derinzy was in no special hurry, he had plenty of time before
him, and he had his toilette to attend to; a business which, though
he was no set dandy, he never scamped. He was very particular about
the exact parting of his hair, the polish of his nails, and the set
of his necktie; and between each act of dressing he went back to his
writing-table, and re-read the little note lying upon, it. Once or
twice he took the little note up, and whispered "darling!" to it, and
kissed it before he put it down again. Poor Paul! he was evidently
very hard hit, and just at the time of life, too, when these wounds
fester and rankle so confoundedly. Your _ci-devant jeune homme_, your
middle-aged gallant, _viveur, coureur des dames_, takes a love-affair
as easily as his dinner: if it goes well, all right; if it comes to
grief, equally all right; the sooner it is over the better he likes it.
The great cynical philosopher of the age, whose cynicism it is now the
fashion to deny--as though he could help it, or would have been in the
least ashamed of it--in one of his ballads calls upon all his coevals
of forty to declare:
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow, and wearisome, ere
Ever a month had passed away?
Middle-aged man has other aims, other resources, other objects.
The "court, camp, grove, the vessel and the mart," fame, business,
ambition--all of these have claims upon his time, claims which he is
compelled to recognise in their proper season; and, worst of all,
he has recovered from the attacks of the "cruel madness of love," a
youthful disorder, seldom or never taken in middle life; the glamour
which steeped all surrounding objects in roseate hues no longer exists,
and it is impossible to get up any spurious imitations of it. Time
has taught him common sense; he has made friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness; and instead of wandering about the grounds begging
Maud to come out to him, and singing rapturous nonsense to the flowers,
he is indoors dining with the Tory squires. But the young have but one
idea in the world. They are entirely of opinion, with Mr. Coleridge's
hero, that all thoughts, "all passions, all delights that stir this
mortal frame," are "ministers of love," and "feed his sacred flame."
Perpetually to play at that sweet game of lips, to alternate between
the heights of hope and the depths of despair, to pine for a glance
and to be made happy by a word, to have no care for anything else,
to ignore the friends in whose society you have hitherto found such
delight, to shut your eyes knowingly, wilfully, and resolutely to the
sight of everything but one object, and to fall down and persistently
adore that object in the face of censure, contempt, and obloquy, is
granted to but few men over thirty years of age. Let them not be
ashamed of the weakness, rather let them congratulate themselves on its
possession: it will give a zest and flavour to their middle life which
but few enjoy.
Paul Derinzy, however, was just at that period of his life when
everything is rose-coloured. He was even young enough to enjoy looking
at himself in the glass, which is indeed a proof of youth; for there
is no face or no company a man so soon gets sick of as his own. But
Paul stood before the little glass behind the washing-screen settling
his hat, and gazing at himself very complacently, even going so far
as to fetch another little glass from his drawer, and by aid of the
two ascertaining that his back parting was perfectly straight. As he
replaced the glass, he took out a yellow rosebud, carefully wrapped in
wool, cleared it from its envelope, and sticking it in his buttonhole,
took his departure.
Paul looked up at the Horse-Guards clock as he passed by, and finding
that he had plenty of time to spare, walked slowly up Whitehall. The
muslin-cravated, fresh-coloured, country gentlemen at the Union Club,
and the dyed and grizzled veterans at the Senior United, looked out
of the window at the young man as he passed, and envied him his youth
and his health and his good looks. He strolled up Waterloo Place
just as the insurance-offices with which that district abounds were
being closed for the half-holiday, and the insurance-clerks, young
gentlemen who, for the most part, mould themselves in dress and manners
upon Government officials, took mental notes of Paul's clothes, and
determined to have them closely imitated so soon as the state of their
salaries permitted. Quite unconscious of this sincerest flattery, Paul
continued his walk, striking across into Piccadilly, and lounging
leisurely along until he came to the Green Park, which he entered,
and sat down for a few minutes. It was the dull time of the day--when
the lower half of society was at dinner, and the upper half at
luncheon--and there was scarcely anyone about. After a short rest, Paul
looked at his watch, and muttering to himself, "She can't have started
yet; I may just as well have the satisfaction of letting my eyes rest
on her as she walks to the Gardens," he rose, and turned his steps back
again. He turned up Bond Street, and off through Conduit Street into
George Street, Hanover Square, and there, just by St. George's Church,
he stopped.
Not to the church, however, was his attention directed, but to the
house immediately opposite to it. A big, red-faced, old-fashioned
house, fresh painted and pointed, with plate-glass windows in its lower
stories, and bronzed knockers, and shining bell-pulls, looking like a
portly dowager endeavouring to assume modern airs and graces. Carriages
kept driving up, and depositing old and young ladies, and the door, on
which was an enormous brass plate with "Madame Clarisse," in letters
nearly half a foot long, was perpetually being flung open by a page
with a very shiny face, produced by a judicious combination of yellow
soap and friction--a page who, in his morning-jacket ruled with red
lines, looked like a page of an account-book. Paul Derinzy knew many of
these carriage-brought people--for Madame Clarisse was the fashionable
milliner of London, and had none but the very greatest of fine ladies
in her _clientèle_--and many of them knew him; but on the present
occasion he carefully shrouded himself from observation behind one of
the pillars of the church portico. There he remained in an agony of
impatience, fidgeting about, looking at his watch, glaring up at the
bright-faced house, and anathematising the customers, until the clock
in the church-tower above him chimed the half-hour past two. Then he
became more fidgety than ever. Before, he had taken short turns up and
down the street, always returning sharply to the same spot, and looking
round as though he had expected some remarkable alteration to have
taken place during his ten seconds' absence; now, he stood behind the
pillar, never attempting to move from the spot, but constantly peering
across the way at Madame Clarisse's great hall-door.
Within five minutes of the chiming of the clock, the great hall-door
was opened so quietly that it was perfectly apparent the demonstrative
page was not behind it. A young woman, simply and elegantly dressed
in a tight-fitting black silk gown, and a small straw bonnet trimmed
with green ribbon, with a black lace shawl thrown loosely across her
shoulders and hanging down behind, after a French fashion then in
vogue, passed out, closing the door softly behind her, and started off
in the direction of the Park. Then Paul Derinzy left his hiding-place,
and, at a discreet distance, followed in pursuit.
There must have been something very odd or very attractive in the
personal appearance of this young woman, for she undoubtedly attracted
a vast deal of attention as she passed through the streets. It would
require something special, one would imagine, to intervene between
a man and the toothache; and yet a gentleman seated in a dentist's
ante-room in George Street, with a face swollen to twice its natural
size, and all out of drawing, and vainly endeavouring to solace
himself, and to forget the coming wrench, with the pleasant pages of a
ten-years'-old _Bentleys Miscellany_, flung the book aside as he saw
the girl go by, and crammed himself into a corner of the window to look
after her retreating figure. Two sporting gentlemen standing at the
freshly-sanded door of Limmer's Hotel, smoking cigars, and muttering
to each other in whispers of forthcoming "events," suspended their
conversation and exchanged a rapid wink as she flitted by them. The
old boys sunning themselves in Bond Street, pottering into Ebers' for
their stalls, or pricing fish at Groves's, were very much fluttered by
the girl's transient appearance among them. The little head was carried
very erect, and there must have been something in the expression of the
face which daunted the veterans, and prevented them from addressing
her. One or two gave chase, but soon found out that the gouty feet
so neatly incased in varnished boots had no chance with this modern
Atalanta, who sailed away without a check, looking neither to the right
nor to the left. Nor were men her only admirers; ladies sitting in
their carriages at shop-doors would look at her half in wonderment,
half in admiration, and whisper to each other: "What a pretty girl!"
and these compliments pleased her immensely, and brought the colour to
her face, adding to her beauty.
She crossed into the Park through Grosvenor Gate, and taking the
path that lay immediately in front of her, went straight ahead about
half-way between the Serpentine and the Bayswater Road, then through
the little iron gate into Kensington Gardens, and across the turf
for some distance until she came in sight of a little avenue of
trees, through which glimmered the shining waters of the Round Pond,
backed by the rubicund face of stout old Kensington Palace. Then she
slackened her pace a little, and began to look around her. There were
but few, very few people near: two or three valetudinarians sunning
themselves on such of the benches as were in sufficient repair; a
few children playing about while their nursemaids joined forces and
abused their employers; a shabby-genteel man eating a sandwich of
roll-and-sausage--obviously his dinner--in a shamefaced way, and
drinking short gulps out of a tin flask under the shadow of his hat;
and a vagabond dog or two, delighted at having escaped the vigilance
of the park-keeper, and snapping, yelping, and performing acrobatic
feats of tumbling, out of what were literally pure animal spirits.
Valetudinarians, children, nursemaids, and dogs were evidently not what
the girl had come to see, for she stopped, struck the stick-handle of
her open parasol against her shoulder, and murmured, "How provoking!"
Just at that instant Paul Derinzy, who had been following her tolerably
closely, touched her arm. She started, wheeled swiftly round, and her
eyes brightened and the flush rose in her cheeks as she cried:
"Oh, Mr. Douglas!"
"'Mr. Douglas,' Daisy!" said Paul Derinzy, with uplifted eyebrows;
"'and why this courtesy,' as we say in Sir Walter Scott?"
"I mean Paul," said the girl; "but you startled me so, I scarcely knew
what I said."
"Ah, 'Paul' is much better. The idea of your calling me anything else!"
"I don't know, I rather think you're 'Mr. Douglas' just now. You're
always 'Mr. Douglas,' recollect, when I'm at all displeased with you,
and I've lots of things for you to explain to-day."
"Fire away, child! Let's turn out of the path first, in amongst these
trees. So--that is better. Now then, what is the first?--by Jove, pet,
how stunning you look to-day!"
A vulgar but expressive term, and one in general acceptance ten years
ago. One, too, by no means inexpressive of the girl's beauty, for she
was beautiful, and in a style that was then uncommon. She had red hair.
Nowadays red hair is by no means uncommon; it may be seen hanging in
bunches in the _coiffeurs'_ shops, and, with black roots, on the heads
of most of the Dryads of the Wood. Ten years ago, to have red hair was
to be subjected to chaff by the street-boys, to be called "carrots"
by the vulgar, and to be pitied silently by the polite. Red hair
_au naturel_ was almost unknown--it was greased, and pomatumed, and
cosmetiqued, and flattened into _bandeaux_, and twisted into ringlets,
and deepened and darkened and disguised in every possible shape and
way; it was "auburn," it was "chestnut," it was anything but red.
This girl had red hair, and hated it, but was too proud to attempt to
disguise it. So she wore it in a thick dry mass, heavy and crisp, and
low on the forehead, and it suited her dead-white skin, creamy white,
showing the rising blood on the smallest provocation, and her thin
cheeks, and her pointed chin, and her gray eyes, and her long, but
slightly impertinent, nose. No wonder people in the street turned round
and stared at her; they had been educated up to the raven locks, and
the short straight noses, and the rounded chin style of beauty, formed
on the true classical model, and they could not understand this kind of
thing except in a picture of Mr. Dante Rossetti, or young Mr. Millais,
or some of those other new-fangled artists who, they supposed, were
clever, but who were decidedly "odd."
There was no doubt about her beauty, though, and none about her style.
So Paul Derinzy thought, as he looked her up and down on saying the
last-recorded words, and marked her tall, _svelte_, lissom figure; her
neatly-shod, neatly-gloved feet and hands; her light walk, so free and
yet so stately; and the simple elegance of her dress.
"You are a stunner, pet, and I adore you! There, having delivered
myself of those mild observations, I will suffer you to proceed. You
had a lot of things to say to me? Fire away!"
"In the first place, why were you not here to meet me, Mr. Douglas?"
"Again that detestable formality! Daisy, I swear, if you call me that
again, I'll kiss you,--_coram publico, en plein air_, here before
everybody; and that child, who will not take its eyes off us, will
swallow the hoopstick it is now sucking, and its death will lie at your
door."
"No, but seriously--where have you been?"
"You want to know? Well, then, I don't mind telling you that I've
followed you every foot of the way from George Street. Ah, you may well
blush, young woman! I was the heartbroken witness of your flirtation
with those youths in Bond Street."
"Horrid old things! No, but, Paul, did you really follow me from
Madame's? Were you there to see me come out?"
"My child, I was there for three mortal quarters of an hour before you
came out."
"That was very nice of you; _bien gentil_, as Mdlle. Augustine says. I
wish you knew Mdlle. Augustine, she's a very great friend of Madame's."
"I wish I was Mdlle. Augustine. I say, Daisy, doesn't Madame Clarisse
want a male hand in the business--something in the light-porter line?
I'm sure it would suit me better than that beastly office."
"What office, Paul?"
"Why, my office, darling; where I go every day. Do you mean to say I
didn't tell you about that, Daisy?"
"Certainly not; you've told me nothing about yourself."
"Well, you see, I've known you so short a time, and seen so little of
you. Oh yes, I go to an office."
"Do you mean to say you're a clerk?"
"Well, yes--not to put too fine a point upon it, I suppose I am."
"What! a lawyer's clerk?"
"No, no! D--n it all, Daisy, not as bad as that, nothing of the kind.
Government office, Civil servant of the Crown, and all that kind of
thing, don't you understand? Her Majesty's Stannaries--one of the
principal departments of the State."
"And do you go there every day, Mr.--I mean, Paul?"
"Well, I'm supposed to, my darling; point of fact, I do go
there--generally."
"Why don't you let me write to you there?"
"Write to me there! at the office! My dear child, there are the most
stringent rules of the service against it. Any man in the office
receiving a letter from a lady at the office would be--would be had up
before the House of Commons, and very probably committed to the Tower!"
"What a curious thing! I thought you had nothing to do."
"Nothing to do! My darling Daisy, no galley-slave who tugs at the
what-d'ye-call-em--oar--works harder than I do, as, indeed, Lord
Palmerston has often acknowledged."
"And you're well paid for it? I mean, you get lots of money?" asked the
girl, looking straight up into his face.
"Ye-yes, child. Yes, statecraft is tolerably well remunerated. Besides,
men in my position have generally something else to live upon, some
private means, some allowances from their people."
"Their people? Oh, you mean their families. Yes, that must be very
nice. Have you any--any people?"
"Yes, Daisy, my father and mother are both alive."
"They don't live with you in Hanover Street?"
"Oh no; they live down in the country, a long way off--down in the West
of England."
"And they're rich, I suppose?"
"Yes, they're very fairly off."
"And how many brothers and sisters have you, Paul?"
"None, darling; I am the only child; the entire hopes of the family are
centred in this charming creature. Have you finished your questions,
you inquisitive puss?"
"Quite. Did it sound inquisitive? I daresay it did; I daresay my
foolish chatter was boring you."
"My pet Daisy, I'd sooner hear what you call your foolish chatter than
anything in the world--much sooner than Tamberlik's _ut de poitrine_,
that all the musical people are raving about just now. See, darling,
let us sit down here. Take off your glove--this right glove. No? what
nonsense! I may kiss your hand; there's no one looking but that fat
child in the brown-holland knickerbockers, and if he doesn't turn his
eyes away, I'll make a face at him, and frighten him into convulsions.
There; now tell me about yourself."
"About myself? I've nothing to tell, Paul, except that we're horribly
busy, and Madame plagues our lives out."
"Had you any difficulty in getting out to-day? You thought you would
have when last I saw you."
"Dreadful difficulty; Madame fussed and fumed, and declared that she
could not possibly let me go; but I insisted; and as the customers like
me, and always ask for me, I suppose I am too valuable for her to say
much."
"By the way, Daisy, do any men ever come to your place--with the women,
I mean?"
"Sometimes; the husbands or the brothers of the ladies."
"Exactly. I suppose they don't--I mean, I suppose you don't--what a
fool I am! No matter. Are you going back there this evening?"
"Yes, Madame would not let me come until I promised to be back by six
to see the parcels off. Madame's going to the Opera to-night, and
she'll be dressing at the time, and she must have somebody there she
can depend upon."
"And you are the somebody, Daisy? How deuced nice to be able to
reckon upon finding you anywhere when one wanted you! No, I say; no
one can see my arm, it's quite covered by your shawl, and it fits so
beautifully round your waist, just as if you had been measured for it
at Madame Clarisse's. Well, and what time will you be free?"
"Between eight and nine, I suppose; nearer nine."
"May I meet you when you come away, Daisy? Will you come with me to the
theatre?"
"No, Paul; you know perfectly well that I will not. You know it is not
of the slightest use proposing such things to me."
"Yes, I know it's of no use; I wish it were; it would be so jolly,
and--then you'll go straight back to South Molton Street?"
"Yes; to my garret!" and she laughed, rather a hard laugh, as she said
these words.
"Don't say that, Daisy; I hate to hear you say that word."
"It's the right word, Paul, horrid or not. However, I shall get out of
it some day, I suppose."
"How?" asked Paul, withdrawing his arm from her waist, and looking
fixedly at her.
"How should I know?" said the girl, with the same hard laugh. "Feet
foremost, perhaps, in my coffin. Somehow, at all events."
"You're in a curious mood to-day, Daisy."
"Am I? You'll see me in many curious moods, if we continue to know each
other long, Paul--which I very much doubt, by the way."
"Daisy, what makes you say that? You've not seen anyone--you've not
heard--I mean, you don't intend to break with me, Daisy?"
"There is nothing to break, my poor Paul!"
"Whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that you remain in what you
call your garret? Whose fault is it that you are compelled to obey
Madame Clarisse, and to dance attendance on her infernal customers?
Not mine, you must allow that. You know what is the dearest wish of my
heart--you know how often I have proposed that----"
"Stop, sir," said Daisy, laying her ungloved hand upon his mouth; "you
know how often I have forbidden you to touch upon that subject, and
now you dare to disobey merely because I was foolish enough to be off
my guard for a moment, and to let some grumbling escape my lips. No,
no, Paul, let us be sensible; it is very well as it is. We enjoy these
stolen meetings; at least, I do----"
"And you think I don't, I suppose? Oh no, certainly not!"
"You very rude bear, why do you interrupt me? I don't think anything
of the sort. I know you enjoy them too. Then why should we bother
ourselves about the future?"
"No; but you don't understand, Daisy. It seems so deuced hard for me to
have to see you for such a short time, and then for you to have to go
away, and----"
"Don't you think it is quite as hard for me?"
"But then I'm so fond of you, don't you know! I love you so much,
Daisy."
"And do you imagine I don't care for you? I don't say how much, but I
know it must be more than a little."
"How do you know that, darling?"
"Because my love for you has conquered my pride, Paul. That shows me
at once, without anything else, that I must love you. Do you think if
I didn't care for you that I would consent to all this subterfuge and
mystery which always surrounds us? Do you imagine that I have no eyes
and no perception? Do you think I don't notice that you have chosen
this place for our meeting because it is quite quiet and secluded? That
when anyone having the least appearance of belonging to your world
comes near us, you are in an agony, and turn your head aside, or cover
your face with your hand, lest you should be recognised? Do you think I
haven't noticed all this? And do you think I don't know that all these
precautions are taken, and all this fear is undergone, because you are
walking with _me?_"
"My darling Daisy----"
"It's my own fault, Paul. Understand, I quite allow that. I am not in
your rank of life. I am Madame Clarisse's show-woman; and I ought to
look for my lovers amongst Messrs. Lewis and Allenby's young drapers,
or the assistants at Godfrey and Cooke's, the chemists. They would
be very proud to be seen with me, and would probably take me out on
Sundays, along the Hammersmith Road in a four-wheel chaise. However, I
hate chemists and drapers and four-wheel chaises, and prefer walking in
this gloomy grove with you, Paul."
"You're a queer child," said Paul, with a sigh of relief at the subject
being, as he thought, ended, and with a gratified smile at the pleasant
words Daisy had last spoken.
"Yes," she said; "queer enough, Heaven knows! I suppose my dislike to
those kind of people is because I was decently born and educated; and I
can't forget that even now, when I'm only a milliner's shop-girl. But
with all my queerness, I was right in what I said, wasn't I, Paul?"
"Why, my darling, it's a question, don't you see. I don't care for
myself; I should be only too proud for people to think that I--that
a girl like you would be about with me, and that kind of thing; but
it's one's people, don't you know, and all that infernal cant and
conventionality."
"Exactly. Now let us take a turn up and down the gloomy grove, and talk
about something else."
She rose as she spoke, and passed her arm through his, and they began
slowly pacing up and down among the trees. The "something else" which
formed the subject of their talk it is not very difficult to divine,
and though apparently deeply interesting to them, it would not be worth
transcription. It was the old, old subject, which retains its glamour
in all countries and in all places, and which was as entrancing in that
bit of cockney paradise, with the smoke-discoloured trees waving above
them, and the dirty sheep nibbling near them, as it was to OEnone on
Ida, or to Desdemona in Venice.
So they strolled about, trying endless variations of the same tune,
until it became time for Daisy to think of returning to her place of
business. Paul, after a little inward struggle with himself, proposed
to walk with her as far as the Marble Arch; there would be no one in
that part of the Park, he thought, of whom he need have the slightest
fear; and Daisy appearing to be delighted, they started off. Just
before they reached the end of the turf by the Marble Arch they stopped
to say adieux. These apparently took a long time to get over, for
Daisy's delicate little glove was retained in Paul's grasp, her face
was upturned, and he was looking into it with love and passion in his
eyes. So that they neither of them observed a tall gentleman who had
just entered the gates, and was striking across the Park when his eyes
fell upon them, and who honoured them, not with a mere cursory glance,
but with an intense and a prolonged stare. This gentleman was George
Wainwright.